Press Releases

The country’s highest court, the Supreme Court, has ruled that the Government discriminated against a disabled woman and her husband and a severely disabled child who needs overnight care through the implementation of the ‘bedroom tax’.

The Supreme Court judges dismissed the Government’s appeal in the case of CPAG’s clients Paul and Susan Rutherford who provide around-the-clock care for their disabled grandson and who have a third bedroom for overnight carers.

Responding today to the announcement of the 2016-17 London Living Wage rate, Child Poverty Action Group Chief Executive Alison Garnham said:

“A London Living Wage rate for 2016-17 of £9.75 is a beacon of good news on a pretty grim horizon for the capital's families. 4 in 10 London children live in poverty, over half of these children live in a family where someone is in work so the London Living Wage provides an important mechanism to reduce in-work poverty in London.

Parents working on the ‘national living wage’ still can’t earn enough to provide an acceptable minimum living standard for their children despite flat (and now falling) inflation and a drop in core household costs like food and energy – even if they both work full-time, warns a new report.

And lone parents’ living standards have deteriorated faster compared to couple-families, with the gap likely to widen, according to the report from Loughborough University’s Donald Hirsch for Child Poverty Action Group.

Out-of-school services are failing to match parents’ need for afterschool and holiday childcare a new report (1) from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) and the Family and Childcare Trust warns.

Almost two fifths (39%) of schools surveyed for the report said parents wanted holiday provision but only 29% of schools offered this. For afterschool childcare the shortfall was 11 percentage points, with only just over half of schools providing this. The mismatch was biggest in primary schools.

Drawing on surveys of more than 1,000 head teachers and of 1,200 children, the study found that extended schools are popular with children and schools, but lack of resources was preventing them from expanding.

Commenting on the appointment today of Damian Green as Work and Pensions Secretary, Alison Garnham, Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group, said:

“The new Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green inherits the two great challenges of an oncoming child poverty crisis and a universal credit benefit that was meant to make work pay but was left eviscerated by Summer budget cuts. We look forward to working with him to ensure that those challenges are overcome so that the country does indeed work for all families, rather than just some.”